Dangerous Secrets

After a busy week at school, teacher Shauna Trenton is looking forward to her days of rest. The fact that she has no one to share it with doesnt bother her in the leastafter all, she doesnt need to have her heart broken yet again. But her uneventful life is turned upside down when upon arriving home, shes held at knifepoint on her own front porch!

When he hears screams coming from his new neighbors home, Levi McLeary doesnt hesitate to investigate, managing to scare off the attacker in the process. Recently returned to Deer Park, Washington, the last person he expects to find living next door is Shauna, the girl he left behind. And when it appears that the attack was not simply a random mugging, Levi begins to wonder if God has brought him back to his hometown for a reason.

Chapter Seventeen

Levi followed, inhaling the rich aroma of chicken stew and the subtle scent of
vanilla that seemed to cling to Shauna.

"Did you just get home?" she asked as she pulled bowls from a cupboard.

"Yes. How about you?"

"Ive been home a while. This kind of food doesnt happen in a minute." She smiled as she spooned stew into a bowl, but it didnt reach her eyes.

"Here, let me do that." He took the bowls from her hands, filling them quickly and setting them on the table.

"Thanks. I feel like Im moving in slow motion today." Shauna pulled silverware from a drawer and sat at the table, her face pale, her eyes shadowed.

"You had a long weekend."

"And a horrible day."

"You were going to tell me about that."

"Was I?"

"Why not?"

"Im sure if I think about it long enough Ill come up with a reason."

"Dont think. Talk."

"Fine. Krista came into the classroom and asked me to have one of my students pack up his things and then bring him to her office. When we got there, the school counselor was there with the sheriff and a couple of people Ive never seen before."

"The sheriff? Sounds like your student got himself into trouble. Maybe he had something to do with what happened to you this weekend."

"Nicolas is a shy, sweet little boy. I dont think he has a mean bone in his body." She stirred her stew, but didnt eat any. Shed said shed changed, but shed done the same thing when shed been a teen worried about friends or grades or parent trouble. Picked at her food and mulled over the problem until shed found a solution to it.

And Levi found himself doing what hed always done, reaching across the table and covering her hand with his, smoothing her knuckles with his thumb. "Did you ask Kristen what was going on?"

"She just told me that it would all come out eventually. Im sure Nick will be fine, but he looked so scared. I felt like I was throwing him to the wolves."

"You were doing what you had to. No one can fault you for it."

"Maybe someone does. Maybe thats what everything that happened this weekend was about."

"What do you mean?"

"It cant be a coincidence that Nick was pulled from my class days after I was robbed and my classroom was trashed." She stood, walking across the room and staring out the window.

"You think someone wasnt happy with how you were treating him and decided to lash out?"

"I dont know what I think. I just know that my life was predictable and easy, and now its pure chaos." She turned to face him again, leaning her hip against the counter, her red hair falling over her shoulders just as hed imagined it would, her eyes deep sapphire blue.

She was breathtaking. Levi stood, crossing the room without thought, without any real plan.

"Am I part of that chaos?" His hands slid around her waist, and her pulse raced in the hollow of her throat. If shed told him to leave, he would have. If shed pushed him away, he would have gone without an argument. But she did neither.

"I wouldnt call you chaos. Id call you trouble," she said, but there was no heat in her words. He leaned down, did what he knew he shouldnt, his lips touching hers.

And it wasnt nearly enough.

She sighed, pulling him close, and he was lost just as hed been when he was young and too foolish to know a good thing when he found it.